


Jane Tennison Never Had a Day Like This

by ladyvivien



Category: New Tricks
Genre: F/M, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:Tauna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-23 15:47:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyvivien/pseuds/ladyvivien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sandra and Gerry, the morning after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jane Tennison Never Had a Day Like This

Sometimes she thinks that they're the only sane ones in the team. Hell, the force. Gerry might be an ageing lothario and one of the most stubborn men she's ever met (after Brian, and that's not so much deliberate stubbornness as sheer pigheadedness), but he's still all there, not half-crazed with grief like poor Jack, or...well, Brian. So it's the two of them, exchanging shared glances and hidden smiles. Or so she'd thought.

Her shrink says that she uses work to get closer to her dad, and brings up her work with UCOS working with older men, classic cops the lot of them — to prove it.

Her shrink talks a lot of bollocks. If anyone's the parent in this scenario, it's her. But this isn't exactly a train of thought she wants to be on this morning so she shifts uncomfortably in her chair — how can she still be sore? Even though it's the good kind of sore, it's not something she wants to be reminded of at work — and clears her throat.

And then clears it again.

"Here, I've got a cough sweet somewhere." Brian roots around in his pockets.

"I was trying to get your attention." And then, just because she can, because she feels like it, she adds, "You bloody pillock."

"Someone got out of the wrong side of bed this morning," Brian mutters. She glances at Gerry sharply, but the expected snigger doesn't come. Instead he avoids her eyes. The way, she realises, that he's been doing all morning. Oh, shit.

She hadn't gotten out of the wrong side of bed this morning. She just hadn't been alone.  
***

He'd thought about her, must have done. He's a man, for Christ's sake. He's Gerry. He'll chase after anything in a skirt. She's an intelligent, attractive, professional woman. She could have her pick. And she would, if it wasn't for the job. And sure, he's put the moves on her before, flirted a little, made the odd overture, but that's just his way of acknowledging that she's female. Or so she'd thought.

Unless.... Oh god, did he do it out of pity?

"You weren't my first one night stand," she snaps, defensively. "And I doubt you'll be my last, so drop the chivalrous act, OK?"

He blinks, then shrugs and goes back to his paper.

"Alright."

Alright? That's all he has to say? She's just compromised her professional integrity — and she's bruised and bitten in places she'd forgotten existed — and he's just shrugging it off. Well, fine. If he's not bothered, she isn't either.

But the silence is tense, and she finds herself babbling because anything is better than the replay of last night's highlights currently showing in her mind.

"Look, we'd had too much to drink. It...it was bound to happen sooner or later. I mean-"  
"You weren't drunk," he interrupts.  
"What?"  
"Not on one glass of wine you weren't. And neither was I." She stares at him, not sure what she's meant to say next. He shrugs, looking embarrassed. "I don't need to get a girl drunk in order to get her into bed. Any bloke who does.... Well, he's not a real man in my book."

Gerry Standing a gentleman. Who'd have thought it? Well she would have, actually. She'd known he was a decent guy, underneath the bluster and bravado, the Cuban cigars and endless string of girlfriends. It's what had drawn her to him, in the end, when he'd opened the taxi door for her and she'd stumbled out and somehow ended up in his arms.

"Then why?"

"Because you're Sandra bloody Pullman, for the love of God! You're smart, you're sexy, and you're a bloody good cop. Face it, Sandra — you're my ideal woman."

He winks at her, half-playful because yeah, right. Half-serious because he might be right.

She didn't expect that, didn't expect the lump that forms in her throat when she hears it.

She takes a swig of the too-sweet tea and swallows, letting it burn her throat.

This was Gerry, for Christ's sakes. The ultimate lothario, she was just another notch on his bedpost. They both knew what they were doing, they were never going to talk about this again. That was the bloody point.

She takes a deep breath.

"Look, I slept with you because it had been a bloody long time since I'd had a personal life. You were there, you were willing, and you weren't a serial killer."  
"I...what?"  
"You're not a serial killer," she repeats calmly, before narrowing her eyes and glaring at him. "Are you?"  
"Well no, but I don't see what that's got to do with anything!"  
"Girl meets boy, girl goes back to boy's place or vice versa, girl ends up dismembered and boy gets life imprisonment."  
Gerry just stares at her. "Christ, that's bleak Sandra."  
"I just didn't want to end up dead in a ditch this morning," she mutters.

He nods silently, and sips at his coffee. She decides that means that the conversation is over, and begins to gather her things and walk away.

"We could make it work, you know," he says.

She doesn't turn around. She imagines life in Gerry's ever-expanding harem, all girl talk and teasing him, maybe even becoming Wife Number Whatever-He's-On-Now. Someone to come home to at night, something other than the job to discuss with the few friends she has left. A life outside the job.  
"No," she says quietly as she walks into her office. "We couldn't."

As the door closes behind her and she collapses in her chair, she lets the thoughts come:

"Indoors," she'd murmured. "Now."

"Yes, Ma'am!"

"Don't call me Ma'am," she'd teased, kissing his smile, "I'm not the bloody Queen."

He didn't get the reference, but she hadn't really expected him to.

After that, it's mostly just snapshots.

His hand pushing up her top, cupping her breast.

The glint in his eyes as she'd led him to the bedroom and pushed him down onto the bed.

He'd been surprisingly gentle, almost tender, and she hadn't been able to stand it, not the warmth in his eyes as he watched her squirming underneath him, not the way he told her how beautiful she was as he pushed into her slowly, even though it has to be as long for him as it has been for her.

She lets the tears flow, knowing that she's got concealer and mascara in her handbag, and that the only man who'll notice her red eyes is the only one who won't ask.

"Oh, bollocks," she mutters to herself. It makes her feel a bit better, actually.

***

"You alright Sandra?" Jack asks later, with an almost fatherly look of concern as he frowns at her.  
"I'm fine." She pastes a smile on her face. "Really, Jack. But thanks."  
"Sometimes I think they don't appreciate you." He nods to Gerry and Brian, arguing over the Times crossword, all thoughts of actually doing any work today apparently forgotten.

She sighs.

"Somehow, Jack, I don't think that's the problem."

He squeezes her shoulder in silent sympathy, and the tears well up for the hundredth time today.

"No. I suppose it isn't.

  



End file.
